NEWS

January - December, 2015

The Plate Project

Brigitta's Thursday morning students were presented with white porcelain plates and asked to produce designs for their decoration. The designs could be original or borrowed and modified - for the
purpose of learning how to produce and apply decals. The decals were printed with iron oxide toner. Some were further decorated with ceramic body stains. Here you see some examples of the fired
plates.

Our annual Raku day took place in the meadow behind our studio. A group of 10 enthusiasts fired their various objects in a fiber/gas kiln and reduced mainly in sawdust. Lots of craquelé was
generated as well as shimmering copper reduction colour.

As a team-building exercise, a group of 27 teachers from schools in Spiez modelled fantasy animals in our studio using the dress pattern technique of Susan Hall (UK) combined with slip decoration
and iron oxide printing.

To celebrate 25 years of creativity and teaching in our studio in Münsingen, we invited past students, friends, buyers and other supporters to retrospective exhibitions of Brigitta's and my work,
an exhibition of ceramics by friends all over the world, photo-boards of past courses and excursions, and the firing of a paternoster kiln based on an idea of Peter Lange (New Zealand). See also "Project Week" below.

In 2013, we again attended the International Ceramics
Festival that takes place every second year in Aberystwyth, Wales. This was our 10th time. As usual we travelled with a group of our students and friends - a party of 7. The festival combines
serious ceramics, meeting old and new friends, and much humour. Our 5 days of post-festival holiday was spent on the coast of North Wales, where we rented a large house by the sea. The group
enjoyed spectacular walks along the coastal path.

"Le Pavillon", the charming gallery and garden of Martha and Walter Hofer lies on the Mont
Vully high above the lakes of Neuchatel and Murten. 2013 saw the 10th anniversary of the gallery. As well as a special programme of exhibitions, the Hofers invited a group of artists (working in
metal, wood and clay) to spend a week at the gallery to work together on a creative project. The result was the construction of a water wheel on a stream running through the garden that powered
an unusual kiln for firing clay. The kiln, modelled on an idea of Peter Lange (New
Zealand), consisted of a conveyer chain 5 m long moving slowly through a 2.5 m long brick tunnel. Throughout the summer, the public were invited to model small clay figures and place them
immediately on the belt for firing. The fired objects were displayed on a long metal ribbon winding its way through the park.

During May and June 2013, the artist Olivia Notaro was invited to occupy the gallery gepard14. She used this "Off Space" in Bern not only to present herself but also to invite 20 artists local and international (including Brigitta and Patrick) to occupy gepard 14 for
a short time, use it as a laboratory, and to enter into a dialog with the space and with her.

During a visit in Vienna in 2009, Brigitta and I were introduced to the painter Gerhard Gutruf by our hosts Dieter and Inge Rodemund. Gerhard is one of the best-known artists in Austria: a painter in oil and aquarelle, a graphic artist specialising in linocut, and an
art theorist known for his analysis of perspective in Vermeer paintings. He has won several major prizes and his work has been collected internationally by major art museums as well as by
significant private collectors. Showing us his work in the studio, Gerhard expressed an interest in printing some of his graphics onto clay. Thus began a collaboration in which Gerhard has spent
time in our studio 2-3 times a year since that meeting. Together, we have worked on printing his linocuts directly onto raw porcelain, and the application of digital decals to print his cubist
representations of the Coliseum in Rome onto fired stoneware.